Idiot
by 13th Dead End
Summary: Taub leaves Kutner a note and thinks about the past. Kutner/Taub if you squint, post-E20.


A further play on the part in S5E12 where Taub suggests he attempted suicide at one point. Set just past the episode 'Simple Explanation'. The inspirations for this short drabble were the note that Taub left, seen at /Kutner, and Three Days Grace's song 'Gone Forever'.

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Taub pressed his forehead to the window in the diagnostics conference room. It was showering outside, turning the whole lot outside into a blurry grey mess. Maybe it was only blurry because there were tears in his eyes? All the others had gone home after the funeral, and House was still nowhere to be found. Taub didn't want to go home. He didn't want to see his wife's sympathetic face, feel her hugging him and hear her consoling words. He didn't need that right now. What he was realizing rapidly is that he needed _Kutner_.

He took House's umbrella, packed up his briefcase, and threw on his coat. The hospital was deserted - he only passed by a few nurses on his way down to the lobby. He kept his head bowed low so his facial expression couldn't be seen, pulling up his coat collar. Finally making it outside, he raised his head, but didn't open the umbrella. The sky was lighter than it had been before, and it seemed the rain would let up soon. A chill shook Taub's body, the cold rain drops concealing the tear tracks on his face.

Solemnly, he walked across the parking lot and got into his car (the shiny, brand new one his wife had bought for him) and dripped water all over the expensive seats. He drove and drove, wet fingers slipping on the steering wheel, with no music on except the gentle _shh, shh_ of the windshield wipers. The sky progressed to a light warm gray as he got out of his car, forgetting the umbrella he had taken (he remembered Kutner didn't like that umbrella, especially when House opened it inside the conference room) and his briefcase. He staggered up the steps to Kutner's house, placing his palm on the front door. To his surprise, it opened before him. Ah, yes... so that's where House had gone, instead of the funeral. Rifling through Kutner's things. So typical, and it pissed him off.

He swung the door open the rest of the way, feeling a lump rise in his throat. Still soaked, he kicked off his shoes but dripped water all down the hall into the living room. He stared at the couch (he remembered him and Kutner sitting there together, watching some crazy sci fi movie the younger doctor was irrevocably in love with) and glanced over at the elaborate action figure collection. He heaved a deep sigh, and fell onto the couch.

"Kutner." He spoke. "I wish I could wake up from this." The house around him was deathly silent in response.

"I kind of felt odd when you didn't come in to work today." he heaved himself up from the couch, moving to the kitchen. His body was moving just like he would in a patient's house, searching for toxins... but no, he was searching for reasons. He peered in the cabinets, scoured the countertops, glanced under tables. "I knew I should have come earlier. Maybe if I'd just stopped by this morning or called you... but that's stupid. Nothing..." he murmured, a rogue tear escaping his eye, but it was quickly wiped away.

"You're such an idiot." He moved out back into the living room, starting at the posters and collections of sci fi memorabilia. "You are such a moron. I never managed to tell you this, well, I did, in metaphor, and maybe you knew, but I tried to kill myself once in college. I thought I was everything. I was the extrovert. I wanted to help everyone. I wanted to change the world. When I couldn't, when I pushed myself, it was too much." He ran a finger along the coffee table. "I was lucky. My roommate saved me in time. Or the insulin would have killed me."

He hesitated, and took steps towards the bedroom. The bed was in the same state as it had been first found; tousled, the imprint of Kutner's last sleep there. Taub's steps grew shorter as he neared. He was terrified, but wouldn't stand to admit it to himself. He reached the doorframe; and the huge, faded red bloodstain on the hardwood flooring greeted him. He shuddered again, from a mix of cold and something else.

"You fucking idiot. You never gave us a chance, you never gave me a chance. If there's something I thought you learned from my stupidity, it's that... this isn't right." He sighed again, resigned. "I'm angry." He'd missed the funeral, which he knew he'd regret later. Instead, he stuck his hand in a coat pocket, and miraculously enough, found a pad of prescription paper that was only slightly wet at the edges. He took out a pen and began to write as the clouds became the faintest gray, shafts of thin sunlight beginning to stream down. He left the note on Kutner's bed.

_I really don't want to write anything. I have nothing to say... I'm pissed off. Why didn't you talk to me? Idiot. I miss you._

_- Chris Taub_

It had stopped raining.


End file.
